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Arnie Niekamp fell through a dimensional portal behind a Burger King into the fantastical land of Foon. He's still getting a slight wifi signal, so he uploads a weekly podcast from the tavern the Vermilion Minotaur where he interviews wizards, monsters and adventurers. It's a major discovery!

Arnie Niekamp fell through a dimensional portal behind a Burger King into the fantastical land of Foon. He's still getting a slight wifi signal, so he uploads a weekly podcast from the tavern the Vermilion Minotaur where he interviews wizards, monsters and adventurers. It's a major discovery!

Customer Reviews

Chuntttttt!

Binged almost 200 episodes over the last two months! Hilarious! Favorite podcast for sure.

erinnikita
, 2019-02-06

Why pay for a therapist?

This podcast got me through rehab.

GreyFoxV1
, 2019-01-21

Outstanding Achievement in Pompous Wizardry

A mumbling wizard rambles on in tongues while a bewildered host fumbles on with the interview as he talks to his companion: a talking, shape-shifting, badger. That is the premise of Hello from the Magic Tavern, a roundtable podcast hosted by Arnie — with shapeshifting badger Chunt and wizard Usidore the Blue co-hosting — who fell through a portal behind a Chicago Burger King and recorded from The Vermilion Minotaur tavern in the land of Foon. That mouthful of ridiculousness is only the beginning of one of the funniest and most lewdly charming podcasts available right now.

With those silly names and co-hosts it might be easy to mistake the show as something for the kids, but it is definitely not for the wild eyed and innocent in the family. It’s a show that relishes in the weird and absurd for a laugh when every character gets on the mic. Even when a talking flower (aptly named Flower) shows up in an early episode and drunkenly tears into Arnie, it never feels mean-spirited.

That sort of humour can be traced back to the beginning of the show in March of 2015. Conceived as a mostly improvised podcast, Arnie Niekamp created the show as a way to continue doing improv after his daughter was born and indulge his love of fantasy settings. It is also worth noting that the show’s first and current sponsor is the Chicago Podcast Cooperative: a group run by the equally clever and crude Cards Against Humanity team. Structured much like a typical roundtable podcast with a moderator and co-hosts bantering about their lives, Hello from the Magic Tavern is all about Arnie playing a character of the same name and learning more about the land of Foon through his co-hosts and their adventures. Each episode typically revolves around an interview with a new or sometimes recurring character from their table at the tavern. Arnie sends back each episode to the realm of Earth via a weak wi-fi connection from the Burger King portal; his only connection to his former home.

Closing out 2018 with a holiday special, the show opens episode 90 with a break from their usual format by recording live on-stage in Chicago. The story and characters still take place in The Vermilion Minotaur, of course, but it takes an interesting turn as a handful of characters show up to be interviewed by Arnie and company about the Winter Solstice holiday in Foon. Each guest tells the cast about what the holiday means for the leading to sweet, sexual, and disgusting-yet-heartwarming tales. Hearing the crowd get into it really was a delight too.The latest episode features an extended interview and discussion with Baron Ragoon (a top leader of the show’s villain: the Dark Lord), who sits down for a chat with the hosts, but not before Chunt makes Arnie comically uncomfortable with his badger fixation on eggs and description of ejaculate-like yolk. Arnie finds a way to segue into bear vaginas from the egg talk (he is a mammal after all) which serves as our introduction to the aforementioned guest. Crude, I know, but the hosts are at their best when ribbing or making each other uncomfortable.

But, this being a podcast, there is the matter of ads. The last two episodes were sponsored by Stitcher Premium, a subscription service for podcasts, which fit nicely at beginning of the episode before the whimsical whistles kick in for the show’s introduction. Actors from the show make perform the ads somewhat in-character which flows nicely into and out of the show proper.

With charming characters, simple but elegant production values, and genuinely funny improv I can’t recommend this show enough. I began listening to it for work but I’m completely hooked and looking forward to catching up on all of the episodes I’ve missed. I give Hello from the Magic Tavern 5 pompous wizards out of 5.